BLACKMAIL • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Blackmail

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/blˈækmˌeɪl/ Listen

noun

Blackmail n.

A certain rate of money, corn, cattle, or other thing, anciently paid, in the north of England and south of Scotland, to certain men who were allied to robbers, or moss troopers, to be by them protected from pillage.

Payment of money exacted by means of intimidation; also, extortion of money from a person by threats of public accusation, exposure, or censure.

(Eng. Law) Black rent, or rent paid in corn, flesh, or the lowest coin, a opposed to "white rent", which paid in silver.

To levy blackmail, to extort money by threats, as of injury to one's reputation.

verb

Blackmail v. t. (past & past part. blackmailed; pres. part. blackmailing) To extort money from by exciting fears of injury other than bodily harm, as injury to reputation, distress of mind, etc.; as, to blackmail a merchant by threatening to expose an alleged fraud. (U. S.)

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Etymology of 'Blackmail'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Blackmail" Quotes from Famous Books

... the letter. Why was she so persistent about seeing it? Did she want to get it into her hands and then keep it, as Harold An Wolf had done? Was it possible that she suspected he would use it to coerce her; she would call it 'blackmail,' he supposed. This being the very thing he had intended to do, and had done, he grew very indignant at the very thought of being accused of it. It was, he felt, a very awkward thing that he had lost ...

— The Man • Bram Stoker

... blackmail me. My wife knows all about that. The knowledge of that occurrence is worthless as a piece ...

— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... another way for all the clues we have picked up. Suppose Sir Horace's return from Scotland was due to a message from a lady friend; suppose the lady went to see him accompanied by a friend whom Sir Horace did not like—a friend of whom Sir Horace was jealous. Suppose they asked for money—blackmail—and there was a quarrel in which Sir Horace was shot. Then we have your idea as to how the lady's handkerchief was torn—I agree with that in the main. The lady and her friend fled from the place. Later in the night the place is burgled ...

— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... art and science of government consists in being honest." With a back door to every ordinance that touched the lives of the people, if indeed the whole thing was not the subject of open ridicule or the vehicle of official blackmail, it seemed as if we had provided a perfect municipal machinery for bringing the law into contempt with the young, and so for wrecking citizenship by the ...

— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... everything but blackmail," he says, "and I'll probably be trying that by this time next year, if this scheme fails. But there's something about their being niggers that makes me sick of this thing already—just as the time has come ...

— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis

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